No goals.
No clean sheet.
No points.
No drive.
No passion.
No desire.
No shape.
No tactics.
No ideas.
No creativity.
No threat.
No positivity.

No hope?

To offer some content, second goal aside, I was impressed with Lascelles’ debut.  I thought Camp should have claimed the first cross, the second was poor marking from the youngster – but aside from that he looked comfortable on the ball and always tried to find something other than a HOOOOF when he had it.  Plenty of endeavour but little end product from the other debutant Guedioura.

It was awful.  The fans in the Upper Bridgford were in good form though.  It’s sad to hear Bamford has gone but not surprising, the acquisition of Danny Higginbotham and Scott Wootton is good news given our defensive frailties – but it’s not going to help us score a goal.  I’m sad to say that what little faith I had in Cotterill is diminishing by the second.  I’m willing to accept that he inherited a difficult job, but we aren’t getting any better under him.

Second from bottom now, and the small matter of a trip to Derby to come.  Nigel Clough must be rubbing his hands together at the prospect, whereas it’s looking like shit or bust for our manager.  If things go badly at Pride Park for him I can’t see a way back for him with the bulk of the fans.  Of course the situation we’re in isn’t all his fault, but he’s the man tasked with getting us out of it – and he’s failing.  Badly.

More excuses from Cotterill, although in fairness, he does have some grounds for complaint at the officials

West Ham United – 2
Nottingham Forest – 1

We appear to have two stock scripts at the moment – be bloody awful and roundly beaten, or suffer misfortune (oft of the refereeing persuasion or perhaps a moment of slack defending) and lose because basically we can’t either provide the final ball or finish to opportunities we may carve out ourselves.  This was one of those games.  It’s easy to point the finger at the referee for the first penalty, but there was plenty of self-inflicted issues too.

A few changes to the FA Cup game – a welcome return to Wes Morgan who appears to be subject to an advanced courtship from Leicester, so probably won’t be here much longer.  His return restored a degree of order in the back four we haven’t seen from Chambers or Moussi.  Similarly likely-to-leave McGugan returned along with McCleary and Marcus Tudgay to the starting line up – those missing out being Boateng, Anderson, Reid and Findley.

Camp
Gunter    Morgan    Lynch    Cunningham
McCleary    Moussi    Greening    McGugan
Harewood    Tudgay

An early opportunity spurned by the Reds when West Ham seemed to be on their heels as the Reds took a corner.  McGugan put in an uncharacteristically good delivery which found Tudgay – who conspired to put his side-footed effort over the bar from ten yards out.  West Ham too carved opportunities – when McGugan lost the ball in midfield it was played out to McCartney on the left who put a teasing ball across the six yard box, with nobody in position to covert.

At the other end McCleary put in a good run and a low cross that missed most Red shirts but found McGugan, who put his shot over from around twelve yards from goal.  A lot of Forest pressure followed, albeit with limited end-product as we’ve become accustomed – although McCleary again was making some opportunities for us – pulling the ball back to Tudgay who looked to have got a chance on target but for a deflection from Winston Reid.

An injury to Cunningham saw a necessary early change from Cotterill, he opted to push Gunter across to left-back and bring McCleary to right back with Anderson coming off the bench to play infront of him.  Unfortunate because Garath had been a good outlet for us going forward.  Anderson was almost a super-sub though, a good run from McGugan saw him cut back from the goal line who was prevented from getting a shot away by Faubert.

From the home side perspective they had plenty of moments too – a poor clearance from Lynch fell for Collison who brought a decent save from Camp.  Then came the moment of madness from the referee – a Collison cross struck the arm (down by his side) of Moussi who had his back to play (heaven knows why) – poor decision from the referee as we are becoming resignedly accustomed.  Noble made no mistake and blasted it into the top corner giving Camp little chance.

Forest behind at half time, and the fans somewhat left focusing on a ridiculous refereeing decision and perhaps conveniently forgetting some of our own profligacy infront of goal and in the lead-up to a goalbound opportunity.  That’s not to defend the referees decision, of course, it was ridiculous.  But we must try to consider the bigger picture and understand areas of improvement we can influence.  Seemingly referees will always be bumbling idiots – and rarely to our benefit!

The second half wasn’t a bad start from Forest – McCleary was still posing problems for West Ham, he won a corner courtesy of a decent cross in the early stages.  The corner was taken by McGugan and found the head of Tudgay – his looping header ending up just over the bar.  Another chance created and taken by Gunter – a solid run forward and shot which brought an excellent save from Robert Green.

Another good corner from McGugan went right through the danger area before clipping the far post and going out.  Frustrating.  An uncharacteristically early change from Cotterill saw the casual Jonthan Greening withdrawn for Dexter Blackstock.  As seems to be the way with our substitutions, it seemed to herald somewhat of a revival for our opponents – Collison breaking through to a one-on-one with Camp, the Forest keeper making a good save.

West Ham were turning up the pressure, their substitute Henri Lansbury bringing another excellent save from Camp.  The pressure bore fruit in the end with the awarding of a second penalty.  At the time I thought it harsh, having seen the replay I’d put it in the ‘harsh-but-seen-them-given’ category, it’s easy to forget referees and linespeople just have one look – and I can see how that look might’ve made them think Gunts deliberately handled the ball.

Anyway, Noble again stepped up and this time placed it low into the corner, sending Camp the wrong way in the process.  This got their tails up and Noble could’ve been walking away with the match ball as he found a way between the Forest defenders but put the ball wide with the hat-trick very much in his sights.

Cotterill’s final change was to replace the largely ineffective Marlon Harewood with Ishmael Miller.  Marlon got a good reception from the home fans – which is unsurprising, he did well for West Ham back in the day and was kind enough to not provide a fat lot of trouble for their defenders in the game to boot!  Forest were still under the cosh, Camp again made a decent save this time from Baldock – it ended up with Collison who fortunately mis-kicked.

Another opportunity for a third goal fell to Carlton Cole, who had done well to get away from Wes Morgan and get himself on the end of Faubert’s cross, his header though was off-target.  The consolation goal was a good ‘un, but too late – a lovely hit from McGugan beat Robert Green all ends up from 25 yards, but with 93 minutes on the clock it was only ever going to be light relief.  Still, our first goal against someone that isn’t Ipswich in god knows how long.

Maybe it’s a start.  I’m not holding my breath, though.  There were undoubtedly positives to be taken here, but a lot of recurring negatives where we don’t seem to be making much progress.  With January rapidly running out we need to do whatever business we are going to do (which hopefully involves replacing the likes of Wes Morgan with another defender (or two!) given how short we already are in that particular area.

Cotter-nil - doesn't have the means nor ability to turn things around for Forest

Leicester City – 4
Nottingham Forest – 0

Leicester deserved to win, probably by more than four goals.  In the brief interludes of pressure from the home side Robbie Findley spurned the chance to equalise with an open goal from 2 yards, he somehow it it over.  Harewood too should’ve done better with a later chance.

Billy Davies is still apparently under a gagging order as he was Mister Diplomacy in the ESPN studio whilst desperate fans in the away end chanted for him because it becomes rapidly apparent that our current manager, amusing dubbed Steve Cotter-nil by the LTLF forum, hasn’t got a single clue how to turn around the frankly alarming slide into can’t-be-arsedness from our squad.

With rumours of 9 transfer requests going in, with Lee Camp confirming pre-match that he was pissed off at not being allowed to leave for Swansea in the summer (bet Swansea are glad now, Vorm is 10x the ‘keeper Camp is) and talk again of protest in their air from Forest fans these are dark days.  On the bright side, at least we can concentrate on the league – next up a comprehensive shoe-ing from West Ham.

The players, the coaching staff, the manager and the board need to take a long hard look at themselves if the good ship Forest is going to avoid an Italian Ferry style catastrophe.  Unfortunately the board are silent, the manager is blaming bad misses in a game in which we were otherwise outclassed, and the players are busy looking for a way to get away rather than take responsibility for their part in our demise.

If I were to sum up the game, nay, the last few games with one image, it would be the one below.  I’m sorry for being childish – but it turns out this lethargy is contagious because I can’t be arsed to go into detail either. It’s been three months nearly since we scored against somebody other than Ipswich, I’m afraid, Mr Cotterill, that this makes your selections, your tactics and your motivation skills akin to, well:

With no money for signings, with no money for getting in Cotter-nil’s own coaching staff, with no money to pay off the ridiculous three-and-a-half year contract we tied him down to, it is very difficult to envisage anything other than relegation for Forest.  Perhaps the question shouldn’t be can we afford to make changes, it should be framed as can we afford not to?

"Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb..."

Nottingham Forest – 0
Southampton – 3

The saddest part of this weekend wasn’t so much another defeat, another goalless performance, another bamboozling post-match interview with Steve Cotterill, another game of mindless hoofball.  I can even begin to acclimatise to the lack of effort the team seem to put in (which is depressing), but – similar to the Leeds game – it’s the fact that Southampton didn’t really have to try.

Indeed, they were weakened from their regular line-up and – in truth – didn’t look all that good.  We just looked so much worse.  The scoreline is, if anything, flattering for us despite our reasonable start to the game where both Marlon Harewood and Joel Lynch ought to have scored.  The referee is a good talking point, he was awful, although Chambers did lead with his arm and make contact – it was probably ‘by the book’ the right call, but the decision was made thanks to the shameful reaction of Southampton players and bench alike.

So anyway, let’s try to get inside the head of the manager when contemplating the selection. “Hmm, Andy Reid and George Boateng both had excellent games at Ipswich, a game we won in… I know, I’ll drop them..”  Whilst I acknowledge that the gaffer has constraints to work under, I don’t think that he does himself any favours, and am rapidly starting to think he’s just as bad – if not worse – than Schteve McClaren.

Camp
Gunter    Chambers    Lynch    Cunningham
McCleary   Moussi    Greening    McGugan
Harewood    Tudgay

So, a four-four-two formation and a first start in his second-spell for Marlon Harewood.  A cagey start, the earliest opportunity of note falling for Dean Hammond, who picked up the ball outside the area, and must have marvelled as our centre halves just stood and looked at him whilst he picked his spot towards the far post.  I suspect it was going wide, but Camp couldn’t be sure and made a smart save at the expense of a corner.

On a slow run away from home and without their leading scorer, the visitors were pretty conservative in their approach – building possession, but invariably gaining territory – and often being assisted by a referee who seemed to deem every instance of their players falling over (which happened quite frequently) as being a foul.  One such freekick was whipped in by Fox, it was cleared – but badly, but fortunately the shot from Lallana was straight at Lee Camp.

Forest did start to make some progress in the game – a corner whipped in by McGugan was deflected off the head of a defending player, falling for Tudgay but slightly awkwardly, so he ended up heading over.  In truth, deflection or otherwise, I’d expect better.  Another opportunity came for Tuds after Harewood fed the ball to him, he went for a lobbed effort but didn’t get nearly enough on it so it was an easy save for the visiting ‘keeper.

A McGugan freekick from a long way out was blasted low by the midfielder, it went through the wall and ended up at the feet of Marlon Harewood around six yards out, Hooiveld put in an excellent block, although you’ve got to say the big striker could’ve done a lot better with a gilt-edged chance.  Sure enough, as Forest’s small portion of effort fizzled out the what-has-become-inevitable sucker-punch was sure enough to follow.

Southampton broke quickly through Jack Cork down the right (Jack Cork cost around the same as we paid for Greening, sigh!), he crossed in and the ball was squared back to Connolly, his shot was parried by Camp straight to Do Prado who gladly accepted the mission to slot the ball into the now gaping goal to give the Saints a 1-0 lead.  It brought the largely quiet visiting fans to life, whilst Forest fans – to their credit – tried to stay reasonably positive.

It wasn’t game over just yet – again, McGugan seemed to have got the knack of corners – this latest one was flicked by Luke Chambers at the near post, finding Joel Lynch at the far post who really should have at the very least hit the target with his header, instead putting it over.  A McGugan free-kick caused some consternation and brought a save from Davies, and a Lynch effort from long-range resulted in a decent save from him.

Wasn’t to be, half time – and losing.  It was to get worse.

Four minutes into the second half we were down to ten men – Chambers jumped with Connolly and won the ball, he lead with his arm, he didn’t ‘elbow’ him as such but there was contact.  It’s the kind of challenge you see dozens of times a game.  The difference with this once was that Connolly went down like he’d been shot, and pretty much the entire Southampton team (including the bench) reacted as if a crime had been committed.

By the book, it probably was a red card – Chambers’ elbow struck Connolly in the head – however, that sets a risky precedent and opens up naturally frustrated comparisons to the likes of Matt Mills overtly elbowing Blackstock with insufficient punishment in recent games.  We do seem to get little luck from referees lately.  On the bright side, Chambers will now be suspended for three games – because, I’m sorry to say, he’s been awful.  Defensive crisis or not.

Moussi was pushed back to defence with Tudgay moved into midfield.  Southampton started to seek to take advantage of their additional numbers, an excellent cross from Lallana found Do Prado who conspired to miss from just eight yards out.  They started to grow in confidence with the combined realisation that they had an extra man, and that we were – well – crap.  Lallana and Cork in particular started to dominate – the latter having a decent effort that Moussi needed to block.

Moments later they had doubled their lead – a clever trick from Harding saw him cut in and feed the ball across the box, a deflection saw it reach the miraculously recovered Connolly who could hardly miss from close range.  Cotterill’s response was to take off the ineffective McGugan and put on Paul Anderson, and moments later withdraw Harewood for Robbie Findley.  As this didn’t change much, he swapped Tudgay for Blackstock – who was half-applauded half-booed by the Southampton fans oddly.

Moments later they were singing for him to give them a wave – odd!  I guess they might have an influx of fans who perhaps aren’t quite in tune with those who’ve been around longer.

Southampton’s last goal was a decent hit, although you have to ask questions of Camp – Schneiderlin strolled forward with the ball to around the 25 yard mark and – unopposed – hit a decent enough shot inside the near post.  Camp got a hand on it I think, and really shouldn’t be being beaten from there like that.  He seemed to think the same and made a series of smart saves from Holmes and Schneiderlin – the pressure continued to the very death when Martin missed a sitter.

Most Forest fans won’t have seen the latter stages – the ground was more than half empty in the home sections long before full time.  In truth, I can’t blame them.  We were, and are, bloody awful.  If the rumours of significant changes to come are true, then I say bring it on.  I noted on Twitter last night that the only players I’d be sad to see leave us would be Morgan, Cohen, Gunter, Blackstock and Lynch.  I might add Raddy to that too – other than that I stand by it.  I was expecting some backlash from fellow fans, and whilst others added some extra names there wasn’t much argument.

As for the manager, coaching staff, Mark Arthur – hell, only Terry the Kitman as part of the general player-related staff that I have any fondness for.  It’s a sad time when you feel like that about the club you support – that you can count on your fingers the people who impact you as a fan who you actually hold in high enough regard to feel sad if they left.  We feel a more helpless case now than we did under Megson who, ironically, is doing rather well at Wednesday at the moment.

For my next trip to the City Ground I think I’ll take a book or the paper with me to pass the time, because the football being served up under Steve Cotterill is awful, and to make matters worse, it isn’t even effective.  The worst of both worlds.  If his was the best CV under consideration from the Forest board then I dread to think who else applied – Jedward? Kerry Katona?  I can understand why fans are pointing to Neil Warnock’s availability, although I can’t see that ever happening!

Reidy denied by Schmeichel...

Nottingham Forest – 0
Leicester City – 0

The result I wanted even less than a win, a nil-nil bore draw in the bore draw leading to a replay.  Something we could do without from every position except perhaps fiscal – after all, I imagine a healthy sized home crowd for the return fixture will boost our coffers considerably given the apparent popularity of the fixture down the A46.  Before this, of course, is the inevitable ‘good draw’ for the next round, which will be dashed when we lose the replay.

Grumpy? Yeah, hadn’t you noticed?  Steve Cotterill didn’t elect to field a weakened side really, injuries aside.  Cunningham is the latest injury worry, dropping out to be replaced by Kieron Freeman who returns from a loan at Mansfield, Boateng missed out – and with Lynch returning to defence gave Moose the opportunity to return to defensive midfield alongside Jonathan Greening, giving us this line-up:

Camp
Gunter    Chambers    Lynch    Freeman
Moussi    Greening
McCleary    McGugan    Reid
Tudgay

Despite fears there weren’t more Leicester fans than Forest, 7,816 fans in blue in the designated areas at least, amongst a crowd of 18,477.  The game begun at quite a frenetic pace, and as seems to have been the custom of late an early injury – this time to an opponent though, Jeff Schlupp taken off on a stretcher and replaced by Jermaine Beckford having gone into a challenge with Jonathan Greening.

Forest seemed to continue to be pretty well spurred on – a good run from Gunter down the right was ended with a decent ball in to McGugan, his volleyed effort was well saved by Schmeichel but rebounded to Reid who tried to put the ball goalward but for the intervention of what appeared to be the arm of a visiting defender.  Naturally enough the referee saw fit to ignore this transgression much like against Cardiff the other week!

Reid was looking dangerous though, having beaten his man he was through on goal, but Schmeichel was equal to his effort and managed to get a touch on to it to put it out for a corner.  Forest had clocked up about five corners before Leicester really came into the game – as ever, we are about as penetrative as a sword made of butter from corners though.  Once Leicester did start to come into the game they looked on occasions quite dangerous.

A freekick from wide on the right was clipped into the box by Paul Gallagher, finding the head of David Nugent before cannoning off the crossbar.  Freeman – generally looking tidy – nearly made a Phil Jones-esque error when he tried to head the ball back under pressure from Beckford, fortunately Lee Camp was alert enough to dive and prevent an embarrassing own goal from the youngster.

Reidy remained our principle source of enterprise, cannily spotting Schmeichel off his line he went for the chipped effort which the ‘keeper had to backpedal to get to before tipping it out for another Forest corner.  As ever with Forest though, failure to breach one goal is often followed by a gift at our own – a short header back from Chambers was intercepted by Nugent who conspired to miss an open goal.

Half time all square – whilst Forest had started well and had Leicester on the ropes, there were probably better chances for the visitors.  Sounding familiar?  It should.  There was plenty of hard work but not masses of quality, particularly going forward.  It was good to see Freeman come through the half relatively unscathed though.  The Reds lined up to kick towards the Bridgford End for the second half.

It was a frenetic start to the second half – a lot of effort and little craft from either side resulting in a lot of lost possession.  McCleary worked well down the right to release Gunter whose ball into the box was cleared.  McCleary picked it up and fed Moussi who miskicked.  Meanwhile Abe picked up the ball for Leicester and did well to get forward and play the ball in to Gallagher who hit it over.

The visitors were getting more of the ball and putting on more pressure – we were treated to one of those moments when a stand of fans look silly, as the away end to a man celebrated what they thought was a goal, Gallagher had taken a shot however it struck the side-netting, which perhaps wasn’t all that apparent from the Bridgford End.  He was withdrawn almost immediately as part of a double substitution from the visitors.

Cotterill followed suit with his increasingly late subs, taking off perhaps our only real creative force (but increasingly knackered-looking) Andy Reid – who was afforded an excellent reception from the fans as was Marlon Harewood, resuming his Forest career after a break of more than eight years.  Pretty much the first thing Marlon did was get caught offside, so he certainly still has the knack of that particular trick!

Further opportunities for the away side followed, Konchesky latched onto a Lynch clearance and sent a dangerous ball across the face of goal which was deflected out for a corner.  At the other end McCleary presented a similar opportunity by playing the ball across the six-yard line and out the other side – as ever, no Forest strikers had gambled that far forward so weren’t able to get on the end of the tantalising cross.

Jermaine Beckford illustrated perhaps why he wasn’t cut out for Premier League football with the miss of the game, in acres of space fifteen yards from goal he conspired to scoop the ball high over the crossbar when he should really have been scoring, or at the very least hitting the target.  Dexter replaced Marcus with about twelve minutes to go, Tuds – as he does – had worked very hard with little support or service at times.

Leicester, in the meantime, continued to conspire to miss chances that looked easier to score – Camp did well to save from Nugent’s header, but parried the ball directly to Dyer who, from four yards out, volleyed it over.  Anderson was our last substitute in a straight swap for McCleary – leaving a few muttering about the clear need for a more creative head like Majewski who seems to be tremendously out of favour with Cotterill.

That said, with McGugan and Gunter both playing and risking being cup-tied despite supposed interest from other clubs, maybe it’s Raddy who is attracting interest?  Or do you get cup-tied even for being an unused substitute?  I don’t think you do – so in fielding Gunts and Lewis we’ve at the very least lessened their value to any would-be interested parties by playing them today.  Interesting speculation, of course, but not really part of the match report!

Matt Mills chose to highlight what has become the customary spectacle of a shit refereeing performance of the City Ground by giving Dexter Blackstock a blatant elbow to the head – the former Reading defender picking up only a yellow card.  The only other incident was a brief treatment of Freeman just into stoppage time, before the game ended without further incident.

For me a draw was the worst possible outcome – an opportunity to replay a game we could have done without in the first place will generate some funds, particularly given the likelihood of a higher-than-normal home attendance for this round of the cup, however with the number of injuries we have an Cotterill’s apparent lack of desire to rest key players we could see our increasingly important league programme put under pressure.  It’s almost a sin to say, but I would rather have lost than drawn given our wider circumstances.

As it is, we are ‘still in the draw’ so to speak.  Sod’s law dictates an exciting prospect of a top flight visitor or trip that will have some fans already excitedly forgetting the replay to overcome, followed by the customary shoeing we’ll get at the Walkers Stadium.  Magic of the F.A. Cup my arse.

The replay is on Wednesday 18th January.

(S)Nottingham Forest, officially crowned as Ipswich Town's bogey team! Six goals in nine games. All against Ipswich!

Ipswich Town – 1
Nottingham Forest – 3

Ooh, that feels better doesn’t it?  After seven games of drawing blanks it took a mere 5 minutes for Tuds to latch onto a throughball from Reidy and score.  Before half time it was 2-0 courtesy of another lovely finish, this time courtesy of Garath McCleary.  An unsaveable penalty kept the nerves jangling (as did some fragile looking defending) but t’was Tudgay again who restored our two goal cushion with a delicious headed goal.

Ipswich must hate playing us!

The latest round of injuries and the suspension of Joel Lynch forced a certain degree of reshuffling the team again, the most surprising perhaps being the return of forgotten-man George Boateng in midfield – enabling Moussi to resume defensive cover in place of the suspended Joel Lynch.  Steve opted for Tuds upfront alone, with McCleary, McGugan and Reid providing attacking impetus from midfield.

Camp
Gunter    Moussi    Chambers    Cunningham
Boateng    Greening
McCleary    McGugan    Reid
Tudgay

The opening stages of the game looked to be more of the same from Forest – an early chance falling to Tudgay whilst the Ipswich defence were caught napping, but the striker blazed over.  This wasn’t to set the tone of the day though as with previous games – just minutes later Reidy spotted Tudgay and picked him out with a lovely through-ball, Tuds made no mistake with the finish this time, slotting it into the far corner from around fifteen yards.

Forest really had their tails up, some good work from McCleary saw him beat a number of players before appearing to lose control of it – it fell favourably for Lewis who couldn’t get much power behind his shot, leaving an easy save for Lee-Barrett to make in the Ipswich goal.  It wasn’t all one-way traffic though, an Edwards freekick was headed across goal by Delaney where Jay Emmanuel-Thomas must be rueing heading the ball straight at Lee Camp.

Returning midfielder George Boateng had a decent effort from range too, their keeper spilling but then reclaiming the ball.  Ipswich did start to provide a sterner test of Forest’s resolve though – and to be honest, a combination of sometimes fortunate defending and awful finishing from the hosts kept us in the lead.  Boateng in particular made a nuisance of himself and appeared to pressure Delaney into shooting over from the edge of the box.

Just as the nails were starting to be chewed though we pulled another goal out the bag – Forest got the ball forward and a short pass inside found McCleary in what didn’t appear a particularly dangerous position, until a mazy run combined with good resilence to avoid the attentions of the man behind him gave him a chance to unleash an unstoppable pile driver into the far corner of the net.

It was almost three moments later too – Bowyer was wasteful with the ball for the home side, giving McGugan an opportunity on the half-volley from around thirty yards, it looked to be bound for the top corner of the net but was just over.  More like what we’ve seen of late, good work from Gunts down the right culminated in a dangerous ball across the six yard box, but with no red shirts in a position to capitalise.

Ipswich in the meantime really were reminiscent of recent Forest games – Daryl Murphy somehow conspired to shoot straight at Camp from six yards out whilst pretty much unmarked.  A cracking effort from Emmanuel-Thomas looked like a goal from around 30 yards, crashing into the crossbar and falling for Bowyer who fluffed the rebound, albeit from an offside position so anything goalbound wouldn’t have counted.

Reid pretty much ended the half for us, working well to get away from a couple of defenders and get a sight of goal – but his chipped shot lacked any real power nor direction to give the home ‘keeper anything to worry about.  So half time and two goals to the good – certainly a strange feeling, positivity was prevalent – with an underlying concern and sometimes actual utterances regarding Ipswich’s recent comeback against Barnsley.

The second half kicked off and the Reds were straight out the blocks again – a corner from Reid was met by the head of Tudgay only to be cleared off the line by an Ipswich player.  Moments later McCleary tricked his way past Cresswell and cut the ball back for Reidy, his shot was blocked and fell for McGugan who certainly should’ve been hitting the target from 16 yards, but was both high AND wide!

Ipswich started to build some pressure on us, and our defence was creaking appropriately.  A rash challenge from McCleary gave them a freekick on the edge of the area, but Emmanuel-Thomas put it over the bar.  At the other end though McCleary was continuing to pose Ipswich problems, beating his man again and putting a cross in for Tudgay who was able to get on the end of it, but ultimately we only ended up with a corner from it.

It has to be said that both the composure and committed challenges of George Boateng really helped dissipate some of the pressure the Reds were coming under, but the home side continued to attack – a ball in from Emmanuel-Thomas nearly caused some panic but for Cunningham to be on hand to clear for a corner.  From the corner Ellington rose to head but put it wide.

The pressure did reward them with a chance though – Emmanuel-Thomas went to ground in the area having jinked his way in there, under the challenge of Cunningham and/or Boateng.  The resulting penalty from Leadbitter was powerfully struck low into the left hand post, ricocheting right along the goalline, off the right hand post and in – not a fat lot that Lee Camp could do about that despite diving the right way, a cracking penalty.

Getting a goal back lifted the otherwise docile home crowd and it’s fair to say nerves were jangling aplenty for the Reds both on and off the pitch, but a break from Forest culminated in a fantastic cross from Reidy and an absolutely brilliant header from Tudgay to loop the ball beyond the ‘keeper and inside the far post to give Forest the two-goal cushion that left us feeling not-quite-so-nervous-but-still-quite-nervous.

A tired looking McCleary was withdrawn for Derbyshire with about seven minutes on the clock, and Forest started to – well – not exactly bust a gut to get forward and do their best to stop Ipswich doing so.  It was working well.  The only threat posed in the closing stages was a long range effort from Leadbitter which Camp saved.  Reid made the slowest withdrawal from a pitch we’ve seen since Billy’s time here and was replaced by Patrick Bamford, who pretty much got to hear the final whistle.

What a relief – of course, we’re not out of the mire yet by any stretch of the imagination, but a few goals and some points will do the lads the world of good.  It’s a pity we have the distraction of a cup game next week and can’t crack on with league fixtures, but such is life.  Well done to the lads on turning it around, it’s so great to have something positive to write about rather than my what-has-become-usual pissing and moaning!

If you’ve not seen them, the goals are here (before the YouTube police delete them!)

Nottingham Forest – 0
Cardiff City – 1

Just like dogs can resemble their owners, I’m starting to get concerned that a football team can resemble the manager.  There was endeavour and effort (perhaps excepting ‘I’m already gone’ McGugan and Matt Derbyshire who were both terribly lethargic), but no quality. No end product – no difficult save for their ‘keeper to make.

Our visitors, on the other hand, offered very little – however brought one decent save from Camp in the first half, saw Miller miss a gilt-edged opportunity to open the scoring, shortly before he – well, did.  We blustered and huffed and puffed but ultimately did not make any significant or meaningful assault on the Cardiff City goal despite enjoying the lion’s share of possession and mounting a fair amount of pressure.

Mixed news at the start on the injury front, Dexter is injured, but Lynch returned:

Camp
Gunter    Chambers    Lynch    Cunningham
McCleary    Moussi    Greening    McGugan
Findley    Tudgay

A bright start from Findley saw him brought down having touched the ball past the Cardiff keeper – he certainly wasn’t clean through and it was a heavy touch past him too (does he do any other kind?) – so a booking was probably fair.  Shortly after that after going up for a header he stayed down and was subbed for Matt Derbyshire – deja vu there, an early substitution due to injury.  Not ideal.

As for the match, same as usual really – promise, some degree of endeavour – but lacking in final balls or strikers prepared to gamble in the danger areas.  Tuds is, bless him, too slow and I’m sad to say that I’ve all but written off Derbyshire.  He’s lightweight, has poor anticipation and doesn’t seem to have a particularly strong work ethic either.  Most attacks came via the useful looking combination of McCleary and Gunter down the right.

I’ll be amazed if we don’t succumb to one of the inevitable offers for Gunter in the January window – whatever Cotterill says in the papers about him wanting to stay.  I’m sure he does, but I’m sure he’d like to play in a better side too whilst probably earning more cash.  It’s easy to point the finger at players we’d like to see moved on – more difficult to imagine who on Earth will oblige us by taking them off our hands.

A special word should be saved for a particularly bad referee as well.  He wasn’t biased, just mind-bogglingly poor with his decision-making.  Cardiff didn’t look up to much either – full of gamesmanship, play-acting and diving which surprised me since Mackay has taken over – but proved they had the quality necessary to convert one of the limited number of decent chances they made.  As noted above, for all our bluster we failed to draw one decent save from their keeper.

The introduction of a spirited Bamford from the reserves was perhaps a slight glimmer – he put himself about a bit and caused some problems, perhaps an earlier introduction might’ve paid dividends (indeed, Derbyshire might as well have not been on the pitch anyway).  Hopefully the mediocrity surrounding him doesn’t detract from the good performances he’s been putting in in the reserves and we get to see a bit more first team action for him.

Listening to Steve Cotterill suggest post-match that we’re not in trouble if we’re only losing 1-0 and not by 4 or 5 is infuriating.  I do realise an element of his job is to remain positive, and I also realise that he is massively hamstrung in how he can operate here – but I regretfully have to say that I really don’t believe he is capable of achieving what is looking increasingly like the impossible and dragging us out of that relegation zone.

Naturally I’d love for him to prove me wrong, but I shan’t be holding my breath.

A big Happy New Year to you all, let us hope for some miraculous turnaround in 2012 to see us start to pull in the right direction.  Alas all I can foresee is the very likely impending relegation of the club – and a probable trip into administration.  Who would’ve thought that this mess was on the cards this time last year?

Finally the Goal of the Month competition for December has been a hotly contested race for Forest, with really only too main contenders.  In a close vote it was decided by a narrow margin that the Trent End goal was just preferred to the Bridgford End goal, because it’s the one our lads do the warm-up in.

Ipswich up next.  They’re the last team we scored against!

Nottingham Forest – 0
Peterborough United – 1

Steve Cotterill’s search for a goal was to end with nothing again in an increasingly predictable borefest at the City Ground.  Despite ‘tweaking a hamstring’ in the warm-up Anderson started, only to be replaced after seven minutes by Garath McCleary, George Boyd ran more in the first half than he ever did in a Forest shirt, and of course, scored the decisive goal (lovely finish, nobody closed him down, if being over-critical Camp might’ve got a better hand on it).

We lined up like this (as noted, with Ando coming off for GMac early doors):

Camp
Gunter    Moussi    Chambers    Cunningham
Anderson    Greening    McGugan    Majewski
Blackstock    Tudgay

And d’you know what?  They couldn’t be arsed – I can’t either.  I shall live up to the example of the players and take no responsibility for chronicling their latest limp offering – for those of you who would indeed like to read an account of another wasted afternoon for Forest fans then head on over to EighteenSixtyFive who faced up to the daunting prospect of reliving the match.

I know it’s a bit mardy of me, but frankly I couldn’t be more disheartened by all things Forest at the moment – to think it’s less than a year since we dismantled Derby by five goals to two, it’s a bloody alarming slide we’ve taken, and I’ve seen enough relegation seasons to recognise the signs.  With all due respect to him, because he seems a lovely fellow, if Steve Cotterill’s CV was the best we had in the aftermath of McClaren-gate then I dread to think who else was in the hat.

There’s some degree of credibility to his repeated pleas of bad luck – but it’s wearing a bit thin, and according to the old adage you do make your own luck to an extent.  His post-match comments whereby he quantified the game by how many times we got the ball in the box betray his intention to ‘play percentages’ – the trouble is not only are we resorting to playing shit football, it transpires we’re not very good at it.

We may well have got the ball in their area 30-40 times, Steve – but how many times were our players anywhere bloody near it?  I don’t blame Cotterill, though.  The players (with a few exceptions) don’t seem to care enough.  Cardiff up next, reckon we’ll get a goal then?  Apparently our current crop have already reached our record number of consecutive games without scoring, the league record is eleven.

Season of goodwill my arse.

On Saturday we are considering taking a pot of paint in to the ground with us so that we can finally answer that tricky debate of which is most boring to watch, Forest poncing around the pitch not giving a shit or some paint drying.  We’re a bit too far from the pitch to properly see the grass growing, after all.

Déjà vu, a glitch in the matrix, it means they've change something. European Champions into a bag of turd!

Nottingham Forest – 0
Crystal Palace – 1

I really don’t have the motivation to go through this in depth – another game where we had the better of the play, but our final ball and/or shot let us down.  Admittedly there was an improvement on the Brighton game in that the visiting ‘keeper had a few saves to make – one of them excellent.  Then again, Camp wasn’t untested prior to eventually conceding.

So here’s how it all started for us…

Camp
Gunter    Morgan    Chambers    Cunningham
McCleary    Moussi     Greening    Anderson
Majewski
Tudgay

An unchanged line-up from last weekend, which was forced into a crazy level of make-shift-ness when Wes Morgan picked up an injury.  Bizarrely we probably had our best spell with ten men, before Andy Reid was introduced and Moussi moved to cover centreback.

Zaha (who was lucky to be on the pitch for me, after diving, kicking the ball away and a foul all of which warranted a card) turned Cunningham too easily, burst forward whilst our entire defence seemed to back-pedal and not close down, simultaneously ignoring the run from Murray to his right.  Zaha picked out the pass, and t’was a nice finish by Murray to put Palace in front just shy of the hour.

Forest laboured and worked hard but constantly came up short as we’ve seen of late – this worries me on many levels.  Just as the mark of a good team is one that plays badly and gets a result, we are a team that plays well – against, with all due respect to Palace, a not exactly good team yet comes up with nothing at all.  That is not a positive thing, and as a supporter of a team that has been relegated a fair few times, it’s a worryingly familiar trait.

Perhaps the one highlight of the afternoon aside from some promising yet ultimately toothless build-up play was the return of Dexter Blackstock, introduced as a late sub he got a fantastic reception from the City Ground crowd – and perhaps could’ve done better with a headed chance put directly at Speroni.  That and Greening’s inexplicable lunge off the pitch at a Palace player which he was lucky to just get booked for.

It wasn’t a bad performance, but we are in the results business now more than ever – and this is a fourth straight defeat.  Indeed, Steve Cotterill has now managed more defeats than Steve McClaren – and done so in one game fewer.  Not having defensive cover on the bench is something he’s answerable for – that said, Moussi deputised well at the back I thought – it appeared to be a combination of Cunningham initially and then Chambers I’d fault for the goal.

A tricky trip to Bristol, then free-scoring (and hopefully free-conceding) Peterborough at home, followed by Cardiff at home… who can see where the points are going to come from there?  That takes us to January, the month of transfer droughts for Forest traditionally – I think that trend changing rather dramatically is our only hope of salvation this season…

Brighton and Hove Albion – 1
Nottingham Forest – 0

Gutted isn’t the word – Forest rose to the challenge from Tuesday night’s fiasco with a spirited and dominating performance over a very good Brighton side.  Only to find themselves being hit by a sucker-punch at the death.  Don’t think that the Forest site is exaggerating (although Steve Cotterill’s ’3 or 4 goals’ claim is an exaggeration) when they say we were by far the better team.  We really were.  It’s bloody infuriating!

It wasn’t really the game that I was looking forward to, more the new ground (supposedly designed to offer an unsurpassed away fans experience), a day out in a pleasant town and hopefully a bearable game of football.  Brighton is a good day out, indeed, I wish I’d stayed over now.  The locals were friendly, and with Forest providing their biggest away crowd so far, there were plenty of Reds around too.

The first limitation with the out-of-the-way location of the ground is getting there – friendly locals advised us to avoid getting a taxi (as was our plan) due to congestion, and just hop on the train.  The demand for the train being such that you can just get on in Brighton and off at Falmer without ever having your ticket paid for.  We joined the throng at the station and ended up on the second train to arrive at the station.  It was cosy on the train but a chance for a bit more banter.

If I’m honest, I’d built the ground up to be more than it was in my head.  The ‘lighting in your team’s colours’ was a single red tinted light, the ‘imagery of your players’ was a single big screen in the eaves of the concourse.  The local beer is a nice touch, although like most other concourses the queues to attain it were prohibitive, the stewards were friendly and ‘light touch’ in their duties, the atmosphere was loud when manufactured at the start of the game, less so during.

In truth – it’s really not a great deal different to any other edge-of-town new-build stadium – of course, given their previous occupancy of the Withdean Stadium it was long overdue for Brighton.  Perhaps I set my expectations too high, but this was nothing more than an above-average away day experience in a ground for me, nothing revolutionary.  But where this was to underwhelm, the match was beyond my wildest expectations after Tuesday’s mauling (albeit with the obvious unhappy ending for us).

Steve Cotterill made changes forced and unforced – Reid suspended, Lynch injured and McGugan and Findley dropped to give us a different look.  Tudgay operating as a lone striker, and the fantastic news that Dexter Blackstock merited a place on the bench:

Camp
Gunter    Morgan    Chambers    Cunningham
McCleary   Greening    Moussi    Anderson
Majewski
Tudgay

It was kind of like that, Raddy playing in a free role, with he, Ando and GMac presumably tasked with providing support for the potentially isolated figure of Tuds upfront on his own.  It was a bright start from the Reds too, pressing forward from the off and McCleary winning us a corner early in the match.  Greening took charge of the corner, which was played short and back to him to cross, just evading Wes Morgan at the back post.

Another opportunity fell this time to Anderson, it was a decent ball by Moussi that gave him the chance to shoot – it was close enough to trouble Ankergren into diving, but was just wide of the post.  The home side too had forays forward at the beginning of the match, a cross from Noone looked dangerous until cleared by Moussi at the expense of a corner.  Raddy was playing well for us, a cross from the left from him was just too high for Tuds to convert.

It was Majewski again causing problems, jinking past Navarro on the edge of the box before being cynically hacked down by him – the resultant freekick was spooned over by the Pole, which was disappointing!  So t’was all square at half time, a text I sent to a friend at that time was ‘0-0 HT.We just shaded but no shots on goal either way – can see this being decided by the next goal. 1-0 either way or 0-0‘ – I should’ve put a bet on, shouldn’t it?

The chance we really should have buried came soon after half time – lovely play between Majewski and McCleary eventually fed the ball to Gunter whose cross from the right was perfect for the diving header by Tudgay.  Alas the striker conspired to put it wide – it’s true that a Forest man was just infront jumping for it too before it dropped – but put that on target and it was a goal, Ankergren was well out of position.

This buoyed on the travelling Forest fans and the team alike – a ball this time from Cunningham on the left came to McCleary who jinked past a couple of players but couldn’t fashion a chance to shoot.  Closer still, a cross from Anderson caused bedlam in the Brighton area but eventually ended up just wide of the post, begging for a leg to just poke the ball over the line.  It was at once exhilarating, but worrying because we were creating but not really causing Ankergren too much work.

Brighton were starting to get more of a foothold in the game in which they’d mostly been spectators so far.  A decent cross from substitute LuaLua found Noone at the back post who – much like Tudgay earlier – perhaps should have at least got his header on target, instead he put it wide of the post.

Forest back on the attack got the ball to McCleary who again did well to trick himself a shooting chance – it deflected off defender Dunk and looped up and … just over for a corner.  This was a well-taken corner from Greening too, it found Tudgay who got his head on it at close range, but straight at Ankergren who caught it gratefully.  I reckon this was the first shot on target all game, but could be wrong.

The next chance fell to Raddy, he worked well to get past Noone and set himself up with a shooting chance from the edge of the area – he struck a curling effort well, but it went beyond the far post.  Yet another case of so near but yet so far.  McCleary was withdrawn late on having had an excellent game, replaced by McGoldrick with many in the stands desperate to see a fairytale return for Dex.

With Brighton attacking more, Forest had a few counter attacks – one such attack saw Gunts burst forward and – on the other side – Anderson busting a gut to get up to support him.  After the cross came to nothing you could see how knackered Ando was, it’s easy to forget he’s been out injured for a while.  He was the next withdrawal, oddly for young Brendan Moloney who didn’t seem to be too sure where he was playing, so sat next to Cunningham.

Into stoppage time came to sucker-punch, Mackail-Smith got away down the right and – unlike the rest of the game managed to stay on his feet (what a diving sod he is!!), put a ball into the box which found Vincelot, he teed up Will Buckley who finished well past Camp.  The first and only shot on target for the home side.  Galling.  However, we could and should have done better with the chances we created – it’s not like we were denied by a goalkeeping masterclass.

So it was a reverse of what I expected really – a more run-of-the-mill match experience sandwiched an excellent performance from the Reds, just that lack of killer instinct is costing us – and, in truth, the biggest cost coming at a late defensive lapse in concentration because whilst the goal was well-taken it was eminently preventable (aren’t they all?).  Brighton fans on the way out seemed to agree with me, lots of consolatory words and phrases like ‘too good to go down’ – hmm. I’ve heard that before.  A few times.